Northwest Airlines said yesterday that it would eliminate 10,000 jobs, pushing to more than 70,000 the number of job cuts the nation's largest airlines have announced since the terrorist attacks last week.

The Northwest Airlines Corporation, the nation's fourth-largest carrier, disclosed the 19 percent reduction in its 53,000-member work force as Continental, American and several other airlines began sending out layoff notices just days after announcing large-scale cutbacks.

Many airlines have reduced their daily flight schedules by about 20 percent as their passenger loads dropped sharply after the terrorist hijackings.

''This is a very painful decision,'' said Richard H. Anderson, the chief executive of Northwest. ''However, the current operating environment dictates that we reduce our flying schedule significantly.''

Delta Air Lines said yesterday that it would also announce job reductions soon. Delta has already said that it was reducing its flight schedule by 15 to 20 percent, indicating it might eliminate 12,000 to 16,000 of its 80,000 workers.

Taken with the announced layoffs, Delta's would bring the total number within the industry close to 100,000.

The large number of layoffs has stunned many airline employees and angered many union leaders.

Pat Friend, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, called the layoffs unnecessary and accused the airlines of trying to create political pressure on Congress to approve a multibillion-dollar bailout package for the industry.

Saying the layoffs were worsening the crisis caused by the terrorist attacks, Ms. Friend said: ''The tactics of these airlines are un-American. Their greed and antipathy toward workers are needlessly going to hurt thousands more working families.''

Union officials at Northwest said they hoped to minimize the number of layoffs by urging many workers to take voluntary furloughs during which they would receive unemployment insurance and continued health insurance.

In recent days, both American Airlines, a unit of the AMR Corporation, and United Airlines have said they would eliminate 20,000 positions each, while Continental said it would cut 12,000 jobs and US Airways, 11,000. Smaller airlines have also said they will layoff workers.

Continental plans to close its flight attendant base in Los Angeles and its 950-employee reservations center in Denver.

Officials at several other airlines said they did not know which cities and regions would be hit hardest by the job reductions, depending in part on which workers take voluntary furloughs and on the geographical distribution of the companies' seniority lists.

Under union contracts at many airlines, the most junior employees are to be laid off first.